He ripped that away.
“I care about you.” He jerked toward me, his words puncturing me. “I am not a man that cares about right from wrong,exceptwhen it concerns you. Only with you. Don’t you get that? You’re my barometer.You’re my compass. I know which way is right because of you. You’re the reason why I’m able to function as a normal person. So yes, Blake, it’s always going to matterwith you.”
My bottom lip was trembling, and my hand was shaking.
How could a girl function after hearing that?
My lungs were burning again, wanting to explode. The feeling was building, rising, growing.
I was drunk, but I wanted to give in. One night. Just one.
It was my excuse for why I could let myself get lost in him.
Hot tears slid down my face. I ignored them. “I can’t be with you sober.”
I heard his soft intake of air. “And that’s the only way I’d have you.”
Sober. Not drunk.
Well, fuck him then.
I glared at him, my eyebrows pulled low.Fuck.Him.
He looked almost normal at the moment. I sneered. “Look at you, having a conscience.”
He barked out a harsh laugh, raking a hand through his hair. “Only for you. Youaremy conscience.” He turned, going to a window that overlooked the rest of the warehouse. “I wasn’t born with a soul, Blake. For fourteen years I walked around, knowing something was different about me, but I didn’t know what it was. It didn’t matter to me. Then one day a little girl got out of a car, and suddenly I had something in my chest. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew something was there that hadn’t been there before. So if that makes you my soul or my conscience, I don’t care. I’ll take it. But that only stays that way as long as I don’t fuck up with you. Letting myself touch you when there’s a chance you could regret it, that’s me poisoning it. I won’t do it. Notthat. Notyou.”
How could he stand there, having done all the things he’d done over the years, the dead bodies that he laid at my feet, tricking me at times, andnowhe stood on some moral podium? “This was your chance, Eight.”
He said, deadpan, “I need to be a better man to be with you, and here I am, being that man, but it’s not what you want right now. Bit of a hypocrite, aren’t you?”
I felt slapped.
A low simmer had already started in me. The heat cranked up, and my blood began to boil over. “You—”
“We have never talked about the option of you and me as inyou and me. As in an us. Isn’t that what you like to do? Talk about feelings? You didn’t want to talk about it the other night. And tonight, we skipped right over that, and you’re not even realizing that.”
I blanched, because he was right. What did that mean?
My head was swimming again, getting all confused. I liked either wanting him or being mad at him because then I knew what I wanted. I knew what I felt. But this, it was making everything all cloudy again.
I whispered, “Eight.”
“We’ve been doing this dance all our lives. You and me. It’s always been you and me. My role keeps changing for you. Not your brother. Not your father. But I’m in your life. Provider.” He laughed, a bitterness there. “If you let me. Protector. If you let me.”
“You have no parameters.” What was he doing here? Where was he going with this?
He suddenly stalked over to me. “I have parameters.”
What was he doing?
I began backing up until I hit the wall.
And he was right there, in front of me, leaning over me. I could feel his heat from his body. His breath coated me, and I tried to suppress a shiver. It didn’t work. He saw it, and he lowered his head even more.
He was so close.
The yearning was building again, taking me over.
